1/17 To my academic colleagues who have not found the courage to speak out against genocide, but instead have decided to focus on their research. Maybe you think its not your place. Maybe you worry about the risks to your career. This 🧵 is for you, i do hope you will read it. 2/17 As we see the rise in repression and censorship of those who speak out against genocide, and with the installation of a proto-fascist administration in the USA, I have been thinking a lot about the story of Karl van Frisch, a prominent zoologist at the University of Munich.

1/ Any call for violence, should be and already is against university policy and code of conduct. Calls for genocide against any group are repulsive. So here is a thread on why I view this statement from our Uni president to be dangerous and appalling.

stonybrook.edu/commcms/pres/f… 2/ I have seen 0 calls on our campus for genocide against Jews. What there have been are peaceful demands for a ceasefire, end to the slaughter of Palestinians, mourning of the murder of thousands of children, demands for Palestinian freedom.

1/9 Thread on a Great news and views from @Faulkner_Lab of @NatureGenet Wang et al. And some comment of my own on Wang et al
MDG4 ERV action during dev has an unexpected role in training immune response to subsequent exogenous viral infections. So cool!
nature.com/articles/s4158… 2/9 This @NatureGenet paper has exciting implications to explore in other organisms. Is this a conserved phenomenon? Do other ERVs have similar impact?

nature.com/articles/s4158…

1/6 On missing heritability and intractability of GWAS for complex traits:
In Mendel’s diallele cross of white leghorn and white Wyandotte, the F1s are all white, but in F2, there is a 13:3 ratio of white:colored feathers. The reason is: dominance of A, recessive epistasis of b 2/6 That is only one such type of epistasis. One could have dominance of A and B with reciprocal recessive epistasis, dominance of A and B with reciprocal dominant epistasis, and etc. And here is the thing: epistasis in genetics is THE RULE, rather than the exception.

1/9. There has been a ton of discussion on academic Twitter about reasons to leave academia. This thread is for young scientists who want to stay in academia. Let me first comment on the things I agree with from the “time to leave” tweets: 2/9 It is true that salaries for PhD students and postdocs are below a living wage.
Faculty should fight in solidarity with grad student and postdoc workers to change this. In the life sciences, NIH and NSF need to adequately resource awards to allow a living wage for everyone.

1/37 I previously responded to the @NewYorker article about the work of @kph3k and I called her sub-field of genetics of socioeconomic success harmful pseudoscience. Out of fairness I read Dr Harden’s book and now want to respond directly to her claims.

https://twitter.com/joshdubnau/status/1442858760117047296?s=20

2/37 “The Genetic Lottery” by @kph3k is well written, with a good explanation for why genetic findings and heritability measures ONLY apply within a study population, and NOT between races. But I stand by my scientific critiques of this as dangerous pseudoscience.

1/11 Genes do influence behavior. They influence cognition too. And yet I call much of this sub-field of genetics out as harmful pseudoscience for reasons i explain below. @kph3k newyorker.com/magazine/2021/… 2/11 Yes, of course genetics impacts neuropsychiatric disorders like autism. Concordance is high in twins.
Yes of course genetics impacts cognition.
I'm smarter than my dog because of genetics.
The issue is whether or not one can claim that genetics impacts cognitive ability.